No. Parody of finding racism in everything.

“niggling” OMG! Racism!!

If you’re actually trying to appear ridiculous, congratulations.

Don’t. I’m engaging in speculation just as Sean suggested. Man, you do have a short little attention span, don’t you?

Yes, but the cop being in Mr. Gates home didn’t seem to be an issue.

Now who’s speculating? You don’t know whether it was an issue or not. Oh wait. The cop didn’t put it in his report, so it didn’t happen.

Any more orders, cap’n?

I was invited to speculate. And I did. I speculated on the reason for the officer’s omission. I did not speculate on the existence of the omission.

And it’s a little late for you to get on your high horse about “folks willing to speculate,” Sean. Roll back up this thread and review your own work.

“niggling” OMG! Racism!!

How do you know?

If the officer had received invitation or permission, I just bet that fact would be part of his report.

Yes, but the cop being in Mr. Gates home didn’t seem to be an issue. The only one that is making an issue out of it is you. You’re laughably trying to concoct some kind of civil rights violation here because the officer didn’t write in the report how he wound up in the house. We know he was in there. He didn’t try to hide that fact, so I am still not sure what your gripe is.

Peaceable as I may be, anybody who enters my house without persmission gets yelled at.

Yeah, except there’s nothing to suggest that says Gates was yelling at the cops because they were inside the house without his permission. Again, nothing pertinent here.

Quaker in a B: Okey dokey.

And there lies some of the problem. Folks too willing to speculate and then defend that speculation as if it were fact.

Also good to know:

Behavior of the professor = pertinent
Behavior of the police officer = niggling detail

But why don’t you go first, Q? You seem to suggest there was some key sequence of events the office deliberately left out. Why not tell us what you think happened?

Okey dokey.

The officer asked Dr. Gates to step out of the house. Dr. Gates declined. The officer entered the house without inivitation or permission. If the officer had received invitation or permission, I just bet that fact would be part of his report.

Instead, the officer who was standing on the porch suddenly appears in the kitchen in the narrative of his reports. In addition, a second officer arrives–while the first officer is in the kitchen–and admits himself to the house as well.

Peaceable as I may be, anybody who enters my house without persmission gets yelled at.

I see. Climbing the front steps is “pertinent.” Entering the premises is not.

Good to know.

Most often my children, who like you, seem to want to debate niggling details of an issue until they’re blue in the face despite it being pointless.

The officer’s report neglects to describe the sequence of events that follows until the two men are in the kitchen.

Why did the officer–with his amazing attention to detail–forget to put this in his report? Please take a guess, Jay.

Uh, perhaps because it was not pertinent to the entire incident.

Yes, by all means. Let’s engage in more speculation.

But why don’t you go first, Q? You seem to suggest there was some key sequence of events the office deliberately left out. Why not tell us what you think happened?

It’s your statement that is not right. He didn’t get arrested for trying to enter his own home.

UNLOCKING his door, not ‘prying’ his way in.

And if you bother reading the article past the second paragraph you’d see he wasn’t arrested for unlocking his door:

The police report said Gates was arrested after he yelled at the investigating officer repeatedly inside the residence then followed the officer outside, where Gates continued to upbraid him. “It was at that time that I informed Professor Gates that he was under arrest,” the officer wrote in the report.

And in the actual police report:

She told me her suspicions were aroused when she observed one of the men wedging his shoulder into the door as if he were trying to force entry.

WEDGING HIS SHOULDER, not ‘unlocking’ the door.

Can’t imagine anyone having a problem with the veracity of their testimony.

I’d certainly have a problem with the veracity of yours.

You don’t want people assuming black men are criminals, but you have no problem assuming someone who reports a possible crime in progress is a “bitch”.

Despite numerous reports describing the events you continue to disregard the facts and insist he was “arrested for being inside his home”.

I, again, am willing to allow that the police may have acted in appropriately if more information comes to light that clarifies how Gates was actually approached. You, on the other hand, are ignoring facts and making up things (you know what was in the neighbor’s heads?) so that you can be righteously indignant over the treatment of a black man.

“I can’t be a racist because I’m black.” Right?

jrfunkenstein: Let me see how you got this utterly wrong; a person is seen by someone else, likely a White woman, and because he’s a Black man in an upscale neighborhood, he is PRESUMED to be breaking into the home he actually LIVES IN, …

OK, let’s pause right there for a moment and notice how your presumption (that the woman is white) is one we should just accept while the other presumption (that someone seen prying open a door is breaking into the house) is one we shouldn’t make. Is your bias showing much?

And the presumption wasn’t that he was breaking into the home he “actually lives in”. The presumption (and, again, it is a reasonable one since people don’t normally try to pry open the door to their own homes) was that the men did not live in the house.

Actually, neither side says the officer did anything like charge into the house, gun drawn, having already concluded that the men were thieves. By asking for identification it was clear he was allowing that as a distinct possibility, but was not presuming it was so. He asked for identification so he could determine which way was the actual case.

Let’s put the race aspect aside for a moment. Two men are seen prying open the door to a house. Is it unreasonable to call the police?

The police officer arrives and finds the men inside the house. Is it unreasonable for him to ask for identification? Or should the rule be “If you find someone inside the house, you should just assume they live there and just leave.”? That would surely be great news to burglars everywhere.

Read the link from the Boston Globe; the ‘admittedly very few’ facts don’t wash with your interpretation at all.

I did. And if all you’re going by (assuming you read the article) is paragraphs like “Friends of Gates said he was already in his home when police arrived. He showed his driver’s license and Harvard identification card, but was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours last Thursday, they said.” then clearly your ability to understand what you read is impaired. There was a significant amount that happened between his showing his card and his getting handcuffed.